Page 40 of Hot Zone

Laughing against his lips, she echoed, “Make me fawn? You think you could make me do so?”

“Without question.”

“No way.”

His grin curved against her mouth. “I am really trying not to be arrogant. But it is a simple fact that I could do it.”

“Nuh-uh,” she mumbled, unable to tear her mouth away from his long enough to form words.

He lifted his head to look down at her. Abruptly, his gaze had gone black and inscrutable. “Tonight,” he murmured.

She blinked up at him. “Tonight what?”

“Tonight, I will make you fawn all over me. You’ll beg. I vow it.”

Her right eyebrow shot up. “Or else what?”

He considered for several seconds. “I suppose you shall claim the right to say you are the only woman who has ever made me fawn over her.”

“You never fawned over Artemesia?”

He snorted in disgust. “She’s too power hungry for my taste. Too selfish.”

“She would say that for a woman to get ahead in this world, she has to be that way.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. But she lives to accumulate influence. After tonight, you will live to please me.”

Tessa burst out laughing. “I’ll never live purely to please any man. There’s a whole lot more to life than that.”

Rustam’s already dark gaze went even blacker. This time he smiled with his mouth, but the expression did not reach his eyes. “We shall see, shan’t we?”

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